The War on Drugs, a drug-ridden innercity neighbourhood and a homicide detective unit are some of the subjects that award winning writer and TV producer David Simon has tackled in print and on the small screen. A sharp writer, with an eye for detail, and details, he is a persistent critic of the War on Drugs, with what he sees as its inequities and tragic inevitabilities.
After taking leave in 1998 from the Baltimore Sun - where he had been working as a crime reporter - to attach himself to a Homicide Police Unit for a year, he had “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets”
published in 1991. A couple of years later it became the basis for NBC’s critically acclaimed TV series “Homicide: Life on the Street” which ran from 1993 to 1999, on which he did some writing and producing work. In 1993 he took another year off from the Baltimore Sun and wrote, with ex-cop Edward Burns, “The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood” about an infamous - for drug-dealing - neighbourhood in Baltimore’s West and its inhabitants. Published in 1997, it also made its way onto the small screen when it appeared as a miniseries on HBO in 2000.
His most recent project is the TV series he created for HBO, “The Wire”, which debuted in 2002, with its fourth season due for broadcast this year in the US. A good showcase of his talents and the themes he likes to explore, it also deals with Baltimore and its inhabitants, their problems with crime and drugs, as well as the bureaucracies and institutions that fight against but also feed these problems.
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